Nibbles – Page 455 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

October 17, 2007

Plants against toxins

GM phytoremediators suck up explosives, carcinogens.

October 17, 2007

Research Fellowships on offer

Pssst. Want a Research Fellowship? Nikolai and Otto say: “you know it makes sense”.

October 17, 2007

Adopt-a-variety

Adopt a banana variety at the Philippines genebank.

October 17, 2007

King Corn

New documentary traces fate of US maize harvest.

October 17, 2007

Mapping hunger

FAO animated map of undernourishment. Via CABI.

- China is building its germplasm collection at the National Frigid Zone Crop and Soybean Germplasm Resources Mid-term Bank in Harbin. Cool.
- Driscoll’s helped build China’s blueberry industry, then discovered that knowledge, infrastructure and genetics have a habit of escaping. Not so cool.
- Meanwhile, the Philippines wants its rice collection to hit 21,000 varieties by the end of the year. IRRI unavailable for comment.
- Italy is establishing a major global olive genebank. Unclear where it fits in with other major global olive genebanks, but some redundancy is good.
- FAO showcases Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, where crops, landscapes and traditional knowledge have survived together. Like olives in Italy, I guess.
- The mangelwurzel is making a comeback, because apparently forgotten root vegetables just need better publicity, and not a fancy GIAHS.
- Ohio growers are trying to save the pawpaw just as Americans are discovering it, partly because of better publicity.
- BeanGPT is bringing AI to breeding and farming beans. Maybe it can help the mangelwurzel and pawpaw too?
Published on September 23, 2026